


Constructs, or Why Hal Really Hates the Ring

by kaizerian



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Green Lantern (Comics)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:40:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23427883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaizerian/pseuds/kaizerian
Summary: Hal awakes with all these mysterious burns on his body. The ring doesn't work and the only person in the god damn house is Oliver Queen who is frustratingly stupid about their situation. He swears Bruce is going to come and save their asses, but is he even able to find out where they are?This is a mainly BatLantern fic, but there are references to other relationships. Check the tags for more info.
Relationships: Dinah Lance/Oliver Queen, Hal Jordan/Bruce Wayne, Hal Jordan/Dinah Lance/Oliver Queen
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	1. Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is Chapter 1 of Constructs, or Why Hal Really Hates the Ring. Happy for feedback and stay tuned for the second chapter.

There usually comes a moment in Hal’s thought process when he clicks. When he finally realizes what the last missing cork, screw or detail was to his constructs. When everything falls into place and he is able to do what he’s always meant to do – create and protect. Even as a child, before the whole Green Lantern thing, he was always building things. Weapons from rattan and rocks for street fights, contraptions to steal donuts off shelves without the cashier noticing, and knitting blankets for when it got cold on the streets. Creation came as instinctual as breathing to Hal, and he could not imagine a day when that ability would forsake him. 

Luckily in his current 36 and hopefully more years of life, it had not once failed. But this time, creation seemed to pervert into something twisted and nauseating. He stared straight down the smooth edge of Bruce’s batarang and his brain worked in automatic speed before his conscience, or lack thereof, caught up. A simple, almost insultingly crude, plier extends itself from Hal’s shoulder and latches onto the batarang. Within seconds, Bruce’s weapon is crushed into smithereens. His face is entirely unreadable behind the cowl, in line with his body’s utter and complete stillness. Bruce does not spring into what Hal thinks to be probably his 5th backup plan, but simply stands there. His hands are lax by his sides, gloved fingers dangling coldly. 

Hal doesn’t know how to react, but his constructs certainly do. Gleaming yellow, the plier makes a straight line for Bruce’s face, surging forward more viciously than Hal could ever intend it to. But the plier stops itself a few millimetres shy of his nose. 

“What are you doing, Bruce?” Hal can only manage to croak out, his throat dry and saliva parched. “Defend yourself. This is what you were made for – my contingency plan.”

Bruce doesn’t say a single word. He unclasps and removes a Kevlar glove from his palm, hissing as the contraption releases. His hand is steady as it reaches up to his face. Bruce gently grips the plier and lowers it down. Inside, Hal is screaming himself hoarse at this idiot who just tried to dismantle a Lantern construct. 

Somehow, the plier gives way. Hal can’t help but feel like his constructs are some twisted outgrowth of his body, some alien extension that he lacks control of. Bruce, being the engineer he always is, has simply overridden its controls. The yellow light illuminates Bruce’s palm, and gives it a sickly glow. He isn’t sure if Bruce is in pain. Hal’s head is swimming and he wishes someone would turn off the bloody lights. It’s as though a million fluorescent bulbs were blasted on and scorching everything in sight.

Bruce’s approaching presence and the shadow he provides is a welcome relief. Hal feels as though he is burning up on the inside, much like how acid boils over and threatens to spill over one of the vats in Gotham’s pharmaceutical industries. He is a vessel for the light, and nothing more. An unstable, cracking vessel, unable to contain the sheer power within. His eyelids are pink, washed over with the brightness and heat of the yellow glow. He wonders briefly before succumbing, if he will ever get to see Bruce’s face again, to hold him again in the comforting darkness without all this unforgiving light. 

∞

The first sensation Hal registers is the surrounding heat. His body kicks into instinctual gear and begins pouring sweat to relieve some of the suffocation. Grasping for the fabric that surrounds him, Hal throws it off and seats up right away. It’s an immediate mistake as his temples pound and he is forced to crash back down. Hal cracks an eye open and finds himself groggily in a dark, marbled room. His throat feels like the Sahara and his fingers white and weak against the dark cloth. Immediately as he hits the soft pressure of the bed underneath, he instinctually knows. Something has gone horribly wrong. 

The skin of his lower back smarts and stings against the impossibly high thread count of the blanket. It should not be. He grew up as rough and dirt cheap as they come. As a trickle of sweat slowly makes it way down, it triggers an unwilling hiss out of Hal. Gingerly pushing himself off the plush bed, Hal flings the surrounding closet doors open one by one, looking for a mirror to figure out what the fuck is going on with his back. He honestly shouldn’t be panicking – injuries are common in this line of work and he’s had worse burns before, assuming that’s what this is. And the fact that he is able to stand and manoeuvre his way around the room is already a pretty good basis. But the recent nauseous memory of all that yellow light, the heat, hurting Bruce, and the unfamiliar room sends Hal reeling. He cannot stop to breathe nor stop to calm himself down. Hal finally finds a full-length mirror that is attached to a hefty cherry wood door. He immediately cringes when he sees the reflection. Bird’s nest hair, drool crusted around his mouth and his face all too pale for someone who spent too long flying around in midday. He spins around and arches his neck over his shoulder. 

Good God. The skin on his back, reaching from the top of his shoulder blades to the curve of his waist is a deep, purplish, angry welt. His shoulders are completely sore and freshly red, skin raised in clear defence. By the looks of it, an immunocompromised reaction. Along the line of his back, some areas are completely charred black and dead while some patches are pink and raw. He doesn’t know how burns as uneven as this form. It’s as though someone took an iron and pressed him back together bit by bit but forgot that the humans healed differently from varying contact to heat. At this point, he deliberates whether the burns are the injury itself or the ramifications of treatment. Either way this would take months to heal from, and would definitely scar beyond belief. 

He needs answers stat. What happened, where did Bruce go – was he even alive, where is he housed, what are those burns? Hal fucking hates having amnesia, an experience he sometimes had to go through during Oan recovery. Those assholes were always bad with human biology. He reaches for the front door, slides it open, expecting to see the familiar silver hallways of the Corps infirmary when he spots Oliver Queen leaning forward on a velvet sofa, eyes furrowed and bearded chin perched on his hand. 

“What in the actual hell—Oliver, what’s going on?” Hal stalks out into the room. Oliver swivels his head over and smiles at Hal getting up and walking about. But his eyes are completely bright yellow.


	2. Somewhere Only We Know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear this is not the plot of the Passengers, I promise. More clues unfold regarding the situation they're in. Some Hal-Oliver dynamics.

Hal’s mind immediately begins piecing together a spear, ready to attack this motherfucker who had posed as his best friend. Was this even Oliver’s body, or was it just Sinestro playing with his head again? Either way, he wasn’t going to show any mercy. It, was dead no matter as a figment of his imagination or a living creature. Hal pulls his arm back, ready to launch the weapon when he realises that there is no construct. He shoots a glance down at his finger – empty. There is even the familiar tan line where the ring used to be, but it is conspicuously absent. The discovery makes Hal’s heart skip a beat, a feat in and of itself considering how used he is to being upended by the g-force and flying about in mid-air. 

At this moment, it stands up. 

“Hal, Hal. Dude. It’s me, it’s still me, Oliver. My eyes are like this because Sinestro configured it so when he locked us in this stupid house, okay? He just wanted to fuck with you, wanted to make you like this when you woke up. I tried looking for a way out, anything. But I can’t reach anybody on my cell phone, the doors don’t open anywhere and just leads you back to where you begin. It’s a fucking nightmare.” Oliver takes a shaky breath in and pleads with Hal, “you’re the only other goddamn person in this house and for the love of God, talk to me.”

Hal stiffens up. He still doesn’t trust it. But it’s right. There is no other way to get information other than conversing with it. 

“I can’t tell who the fuck you are, or what you are. Age old test, if you really are Oliver Queen, tell me something only you and I would know.”

Oliver sucks in a shallow breath, “Fine, only this you and I would know. You made me promise never to mention it ever again, but since you asked, no throwing punches at me.” Hal pauses. He knows what Oliver is going to say if it truly is him.

“On that day in March 2007, you and I got completely shitfaced at my place. On vodka and lime shots. I sucked you off and Dinah walked in on us. She slammed the door and left, I thought my marriage was over and that woman who was the love of my life just, gone. Then, she came back and joined us. We woke up in the morning and you disappeared.”

Hal swallows audibly at that memory – yeah, this is definitely Oliver Queen. 

“We tried to talk to you about it, Hal, but you never wanted to engage us. I know this is a bad time, but I want you to know that Dinah and I had a lot of fun and we never regretted it.” Oliver reaches out a stiff hand and pats Hal’s shoulder, eyes searching his face. 

“It’s fine,” Hal is lost in his thoughts, voice cracking as he replies, “Also, thank god you’re here, buddy. What kind of shit situation are we in?”

Oliver Queen is simultaneously glad that Hal believes him and frustrated that this rock of man will never open up about his reservations and worries. Classic Hal, so emotionally constipated he could win in a competition against Bruce. 

“Like I said, I have no idea how I got here. The League was in a major battle and that’s pretty much all I recall. I don’t even remember who we were attacking. Then suddenly, I woke up, seated at this sofa. I tried the locks, windows, doors, nothing. The windows open up to just white and the doors lead you back into the house,” he fists at his hair, “if this is some kind of magic, we should reach out to Constantine because it sure is something else. But how the hell do we even contact anyone?”

Hal has nothing much else to reassure Oliver, “My ring’s gone too and there are these weird burns on my back. Never seen nothing like them before outside of Oan medical tech. So this must be something extra-terrestrial, at least.” He lifts his shirt and spins around for Oliver, who reaches out a hand and gingerly traces the contours of the burn. Hal flinches in turn, not at the pain but at the odd intimacy of it. He doesn’t trust his own restraint – there was not to be a second mistake with Oliver Queen. He has promises to someone, someone who hopefully is still alive. 

Oliver pulls back, noticing the tension in Hal’s shoulders. “You coulda said something, that morning. If being with Dinah and I was so bad for you.”  
Hal breathes in sharply, “No, Oliver – it wasn’t you guys. I just – I’m with someone. Okay, and I hate to break their trust.” Thankfully, Oliver doesn’t pursue the matter. Taking the chance, Hal flees into the kitchen and attempts to look for food. 

To his surprise, the kitchen is fully stocked. Weirdly stocked, if you asked him. There are cans of Spam, tuna, bread, PB&J, ketchup and mustard. None of the good kind that really attracts either of them, but it’ll do. Hal whips up a quick sandwich with a side of microwaved Spam. Oliver grimaces at the food, to Hal’s irritation. 

“Hey asshole. This is what I grew up on okay? Sorry if Spam is beyond your privileged, blue-blooded tastes. It’s warm and that’s a pretty good baseline.”  
Hal doesn’t know why he lashed out like this, much less voluntarily talking about his childhood, scavenging for leftovers when Amber forgot to feed him. It is only through his third bite of PB&J that he realises all the brands were his childhood favourites. Sometimes, the only ones he knew. 

Suddenly, the bread he’s chewing on tastes like ash. He swivels to Oliver, “Whoever is doing this, he knows me well. Hell, he’s known me for a longer time than all of the League. Whatever this is, it’s personal.”

Oliver stops mid-chew, “And they know about you being Green Lantern and me being Arrow?” Hal feels faint. Not only had he exposed his own status to this perp, he had dragged Oliver in, for being one of his few friends. 

“I assume so, if my ring is gone. This is my bad, Oliver. I wish I’d been more vigilant. At least now we have a clue as to who this motherfucker is.” Oliver shakes his head and gives him a rough pat on the thigh, before getting up to wash the dishes. It’s forgiveness that Hal would happily take in the past, ready to shrug off any blame. But he cannot get past the anger stored in the lines of Oliver’s neck, the harsh straight line of his lips under the beard and the self-control to not swing a punch that Hal does not deserve. 

How the hell did he fuck up so bad?


	3. A New Surprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally Bruce enters the picture (somewhat). I know this fic is slow-building, but bear with me, the conclusion is hopefully going to be worth the burn.

At this point, it’s been 15 days and nobody can deny that he and Oliver Queen are the best of buds, the tightest of bros, the men of their hearts, but he is going to vomit his lunch out if he takes one more look at Oliver. The two are absolutely sick of each other, of spam, and of PB&J. Hal has never wished so much more for anything, anybody else to be different in this goddamn prison. Not a house, a prison, so he shall call it by its true name. 

On the second day, Hal climbed every surface of the house, trying to look for a way out. He smashed his fists against the windows, which never seemed to crack no matter how hard he tried, nor became clear enough to see what was outside. Oliver had devised a makeshift battering ram using the tiny pots that were in the kitchen, trying to ram through the ceiling and floor, only for them to discover a new patch of land underneath. This was a devilish Groundhog Day, and it was driving them insane. 

Collapsing on the couch after a run around the house, Hal can’t help but feel like a hamster in his wheel, being watched and controlled by some master. He is restless, sweaty and on edge. The running had not helped but exacerbated the confines of the space. “Oliver, what do you say about brewing beer?”

“With what you dumbass? Do you see any drop of alcohol in this entire house? If so, I would’ve been blackout drunk by now.” Oliver scoffs, groaning as he buries his face in the arm of the couch. 

“With bread, we have loaves of it. Let’s just try and mix some stuff together and ferment the bread. It’ll work!” At this point, Oliver has had it up to here with Hal’s ideas, and no doubt this beer idea is going to give them the runs till they leave this place. But to hell with it, if he has any chance of getting anything approximating alcohol, he’ll try it. This is usually the point he shuts Dinah’s scolding in his head about high functioning alcoholism. She isn’t here anyway, although he’ll take her nagging any day. 

Hal runs over to the kitchen counter upon seeing the reluctant acceptance break in Oliver’s face. He whips out 2 loaves of white bread and shreds them almost barbarically with his hands into a large metal bowl. What had Carol seen in him, for god’s sake? Oliver shakes his head. Thank god he was straight. Just absolutely so straight. 

Lo and behold, while Hal Jordan was certainly the inventor of crazy ideas, nine out of ten times, Oliver begrudgingly admitted that they worked. They’d found some malt in the back cupboard, which Hal insists tastes delicious mixed with water no matter what he might argue otherwise. The rudimentary combination of the malt and bread had resulted in a somewhat passable proto-beer. It tasted like complete and utter wet grass, but the presence of alcohol was enough for both Oliver and Hal to begin chugging it down. About 2.5 litres later (no one ever accused the two of them of being lightweight), they began to feel a slight buzz. 

And maybe it was the idea of being secluded in a house with no possible exit route, maybe it was the fact that he was so starved for human affection or perhaps it was the terrible bread beer, Hal had a sudden urge to jump someone. He wishes Bruce were here and thought of all the noises he could tease out of him, the way he liked his neck gripped, his collarbone kissed. Oh, beautiful Bruce who was always clean shaven and smooth against his thighs as he sweetly sucked him off. Only he could pull off simultaneously romantic, adorable and fucking filthy at the same time. Hal ached at the thought of never seeing Bruce again, never touching or kissing his lips. The burning imprint of Bruce against his body, the quirk of his smile, the depth of his eyes. How had he gone so deep? He felt like he was in high school again, a hair’s trigger away from coming and waxing poetic about the hard lines of Bruce’s body and his tender eyes. Hal could tell he was radiating heat and frustration far enough to be detected from a mile away, much less Oliver Queen who was plopped right next to him. And call Oliver Queen brash, crass and loud, he was not one to miss out on subtle signals. 

Oliver leaned against him, the lingering smell of alcohol on his breath and his hand hovering warmth over Hal’s body. In that instant, Hal had never wanted that heat so much, wanted the firm pressure on his cock and the harshness of a bite on his neck. But he couldn’t do it. He could not betray Bruce. He didn’t deny that Oliver was far more than attractive, with his trimmed beard and angular jaw. Combined with Dinah then, with her plush lips and soft curves, Hal didn’t think it was possible to come this hard without Bruce. But he had fucked up once, had seen the shuttering of Bruce’s eyes when he found out. Most people thought Batman was stupid to leave his jaw exposed through the mask – a wide area that could easily be identifiable with a scar, a mole, anything. But they hadn’t realized that Bruce’s tell was in his eyes. Behind those blank white shades were eyes that told you when he was irrevocably hurt more than upset. When his pupils turned into flint, instead of the dilated, flush ones Hal was used to peering into in bed. Hal had never wanted to see Bruce’s eyes like that ever again, like two cutting stones that reminded him of his misstep every single moment he so much took a glance at him. For ten whole days after Bruce found out about Hal’s well, involvement, with Oliver and Dinah, Hal avoided him. Not because he wasn’t able to face up to the music, but because he could not bear looking into Bruce’s eyes without shattering inside. Bruce who had placed so much trust in him and for perhaps even the first and only time in his life, loved someone romantically without abandon like he did his family. 

After those ten days, Hal could not take it any longer. He confronted Bruce in the Watchtower, hoping he could at least salvage their friendship, much less the fragile and budding relationship between the two of them. He didn’t need forgiveness from Bruce, just Bruce’s acknowledgement that he was worthy of so many things, of the least being Hal’s love. He had been a stammering, rigid thing, fumbling through his prepared speech that ended lamely in a “I love you Bruce, and what I did to you was abominable”. Bruce unsparingly replied that he knew he was worthy of Hal’s love and much more, which for a brief second, had blinded Hal with so much hurt that he could not hold himself steady. Hal simply looked away and prepared to make a hasty and painful retreat. But Bruce continued. “What you did was ugly and quite frankly, insulting. Honestly, in the past few days, I had no qualms about never seeing you again nor speaking to you beyond League matters.” Hal knew a way out when he was given one – Bruce said in the past few days. He whispered a hesitant “and today?”

Bruce did not speak for a long while, choosing to stare resolutely out the massive glass window behind Hal, contemplating space. How merely 50 years ago, man was so proud to take its first step on the moon and now there was someone brave enough, foolish enough and kind enough to ransack through its realms with Earth’s interests in mind. 

“And today, I decided that forgiveness is a choice. It is a conscious choice that rebels against every one of my natural instincts to leave you in the dust, but it is one that I make. To be with you again and allow myself to learn how to trust, because if no one else can repay that trust, it is you, Hal Jordan.”

Bruce’s voice was raw and cracked. He was unable to look Hal in the eye with the inchoate feeling of being exposed and flayed open in front of him. Then, Hal had surged forward and kissed Bruce so hard he felt he could be pieced back together, in his tight and steady arms. It was nothing short of a bloody miracle for Bruce to be vulnerable, forgive, and trust in that order. Hal would not spend his one last chance again. 

He stood up abruptly and nudged Oliver aside, announcing that he was going to get some coffee to sober up. Taking the message loud and clear, Oliver collapsed on the couch and soon drifted off. A man like him got what he wanted often enough that he was never stung by rejection or scarcity. People blessed enough unlike Hal or Bruce, who clung to each other because sometimes what they only had in the whole wide world was each other. 

As Hal took a sip of his coffee which scalded his tongue, he felt at rest with himself. A rare kind of satisfaction he’d not had in a long while. That is, until the front door opened.


End file.
